The Addiction Research Training Program’s summer interns, all first-year medical students, worked on a wide-ranging group of projects this year, all under the guidance of Dr. Lisa Brents, Ph.D.
Nicole Occidental worked in the Brain Imaging Research Center in the Psychiatric Research Institute with Dr. Andrew James, Ph.D. Her project involved investigating the stability of individuals’ resting state connectivity and their brain representations of motor function over a four-week period of time using fMRI.
Amber Alzufari worked on the Family Health Patterns projects with Dr. Ashley Acheson, Ph.D. This project focused on investigating biological and environmental factors that differ between individuals who have a family history of substance use disorder and individuals that don’t that may predispose an individual to an increased risk of developing a substance use disorder.
Julianna Rose, working with Dr. Bill Fantegrossi, developed an experiment that sought to answer the question of whether tolerance and withdrawal to cannabinoids is different with co-administration of opioids. She administered THC, synthetic cannabinoids, and fentanyl in mice and gathered various forms of data that represented their tolerance to the tetrad of cannabinoid effects (antinociception, hypothermia, catalepsy, and locomotor activity) as well as their degree of cannabinoid withdrawal when precipitated with an antagonist.
Andrew Hill was part of multiple research projects in Dr. Melissa Zielinski’s HEALS Lab. He worked on a scoping review which aimed to survey the literature on justice-involved women’s health. For that project, he read and reviewed academic articles, led facilitation meetings, and was able to draft the introduction for that paper. He then took notes and did qualitative rapid coding for interviews that sought to understand what research should be done for justice-involved women’s health. This allowed him to learn how to summarize long interviews into short, important points, and heard many valuable perspectives from stakeholders in the justice system. Lastly, he conducted interviews for the first phase of a project which seeks to understand the healthcare delivery systems in Arkansas jails, particularly dealing with pregnant women and MOUD access. His role included conducting interviews over the phone and obtaining relevant information from participants.